


Supercut

by sabswrites



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Neverland, basically emma's thoughts about killian until the season three finale, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 08:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11779602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabswrites/pseuds/sabswrites
Summary: "He had asked her if she had ever been in love. She kept her eyes focused upwards, at the top, at her goal, as she answered, as she lied. Of course she’d been in love. It was young and thrilling and the best days of her life. It was also humiliating and lonely and the worst moments of her existence. Regardless, it was none of his business, so she lied. Wondering if he could tell was the worst part."A look inside Emma's head as she comes to understand the love of her life.





	Supercut

In her first memory of him he immediately can’t be trusted, his story is too convenient and his voice trembles in all the right places. If there’s one thing Emma Swan prides herself on it’s detecting the truth and the instant it’s diverged from. That second of hesitation, a lift of the voice, a flicker of the eyes. It was all in his eyes, and yet there was something else there too. Alongside and benign. A recognition almost, although she was sure she would have remembered him. (Unbeknownst to her his mind was all spilling blonde hair and rum lined lips and foggy recollection of a heart in flames.) 

She stared him down from afar as she tried to pin his game. Occasionally they made eye contact and damn it why did he keep looking at her like that? As if he knew her, or at least as if he would wanted to. It was unexpected, she’d give him that, but it didn’t mean anything more.

As she stood holding a knife to his throat his eyes changed. Drawn into disillusionment and rage, they were all fire and vengeance and desperation. He was a liar and she’d known that from the start. So why did she feel a touch of disappointment in confirmation? 

-  
A Pirate! Of course he was a pirate! How ridiculously fitting. A vengeful pirate with a hook for a hand and a stone for a heart. Inescapably, they were sent on a mission together. One of reluctance but mutual benefit. Emma would do anything to get back to her loved ones and the pirate would do anything to avenge the ones he didn’t have. 

Something strange happened up there though. If anything about a magical beanstalk adventure featuring vindictive giants could be singled out as especially strange. He had asked her if she had ever been in love. She kept her eyes focused upwards, at the top, at her goal, as she answered, as she lied. Of course she’d been in love. It was young and thrilling and the best days of her life. It was also humiliating and lonely and the worst moments of her existence. Regardless, it was none of his business, so she lied. Wondering if he could tell was the worst part.

-  
Of course she left him up there, of course she did! She had too. It was a simple assessment of risk and probability, and she figured he was probably a bigger risk than he wanted her to assess. 

In the days following, his plea creeped its way back into her mind. _To trust him,_ he had asked of her. She’d learned from before, from so many befores, that her trust was rarely worth anything to the universe as it laughed at that idea again and again. _“I can’t take a chance that I’m wrong about you,”_ she had said. Honestly, it had been true, even more honestly, she felt sadness in it. But in the moment it didn’t matter as she was not sure if she would ever even see him again. 

Naturally when she did see him again it was not kindly. The fire before tamed by the hours of climbing and easy flirting had returned, meaner than before. He would’ve betrayed her anyways. 

_“Actually, no.”_

His stare was cold yet almost wistful. As if he had held onto hope of being trusted the same way she hoped she could trust. When it came down to it though, he left her the same way she had left him. Locked up and uncertain. 

-  
Hook had turned his ship around. He had come back to help them. He had chosen to be a part of something. Emma didn’t know why, but she didn’t care either. She cared about her once again becoming separated from her son. She cared about glowing portals and crazed kidnappers and every exhausting aspect of her exhausting life. Emma didn’t have the time or energy to exert upon the indiscernible contents of the pirate’s head. 

It was strange nonetheless, because in her experience people didn’t usually come back, and when they did it was never with good intent. Though there he was, offering his service seemingly out of his own good conscience. She really didn’t buy that, but she couldn’t think of an ulterior motive either. She’d have to trust him. Is that not what he had wanted after all? 

-  
The terrifying days on Neverland did nothing to ease Emma’s agitation. With every second she spent on the infernal island her terror grew, and has her terror grew her patience waned. 

She didn’t have the time or energy to focus on anything besides finding her son, which was clearly an impossible feat amongst her current company. Her parents hovering over her every movement, Regina constantly finding something to complain about without fail, Rumplestiltskin off doing whatever the hell his insane mind thought was right, and Hook. 

She still couldn’t quite understand what he was doing here, and with every passing day the answer to that question became more vague. 

_“Just who are you, Swan?”_

_“Wouldn’t you like to know.”_

One day, he went off with her father, and the latter previously an unmoveable object upon the formers throat, returned with blessing and toasts in his name. It was very strange, not only the claim that Hook and truly sacrificed himself in the name of her father, but his modestly about it. There was certainly a lot she didn’t know about him, so much in fact in was often hard to read him, but his arrogance had always been unfaltering. 

The whole ordeal had confused her, and though she tried her best not to show it, she didn’t know what to do next. So she kissed him. It may have been a bad idea, but it certainly wasn’t a bad kiss. It was really an amazing kiss, and there was that feeling again, as if she’d done it before. 

_A one time thing._

-  
Dancing with him was ethereal. He held her perfectly, and moved them with such an ease she couldn’t help but fantasize about where he had learned it from. He spun her and she smiled and laughed. He called her _Princess_ and she didn’t even mind, because for the first time in her life she truly felt like one. For the first time, she accepted that she really was one, and in that moment everything was perfect. 

Her dress flowed and swept across the floor, her eyes sparkled and channeled light. Emma allowed herself then to notice her own beauty. Catching reflections of herself in ballroom mirrors and reflective silverware. Her lips were red as blood and pieces of her golden hair spilled out and across her face. Perhaps she was royalty after all. 

She thought about what she had said earlier, about not belonging in this world, about not being a part of this story that she had been told over and over again. It wasn’t a ridiculous claim, or at least it hadn’t been at the time. After so long living as a fixture in an entirely different reality how could she possibly have belonged to another one? Yet within the waltz, she felt like she belonged.

Within the waltz, she stopped seeing her partner as Hook, as a pirate, as someone mysterious and flawed. She began to see him as Killian Jones, a friend, someone who had shown her a new world. Someone who had lost so much of himself, yet still strived to show her more of herself. What a rare and beautiful gift. Looking at him now, she knew she had underestimated him. 

-  
Over the course of Emma Swan’s life, no one had ever given up anything to be with her. Then Henry showed up, and proved that someone out there cared. She had only just realized it, but that day he had given her the greatest present she would ever receive: her family, and her home.

_”You traded your ship for me?”_

She had lost that most precious gift, but now, someone had given up that same gift in her honor. He had given up his home, to return her to hers. Although the one they would create  
together would be the best of all.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my little Captain Swan fic! I've missed them lately so I thought it'd be nice to revist some of their most iconic moments. 
> 
> Kudos and comments make my life sunny!!
> 
> come say hi at spaceclub.tumblr.com !!


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